Meteor Shower Alert

[Hardrock69]

If you have a clear sky tonight, go outside, kickback in a lawn chair, and watch the sky for a couple of hours. Only negative is that the moon is going to be pretty bright, and you will only be able to see the very brightest meteors. Moon sets later on though, so if you want, get up early about an hour or 2 before sunrise (yeah, right haha) for your best shot.

For more details read the article:

http://www.amsmeteors.org/2011/08/viewing-the-perseid-maximum-in-2011/


The well known Perseid meteor shower is predicted to peak on Friday night/Saturday morning August 12/13. This date is accurate for all areas of the world but the Far East, where observers in countries such as Japan may see similar rates on both the 12/13 and 13/14. Unfortunately the moon will be at its full phase and will be present in the sky the entire night. A full moon is so bright that the glare it produces will obscure all but the brighter meteors. Still, this display is so strong that one may see more activity with the moon present than on nearly all the other nights throughout the year, regardless of lunar conditions. The transparency of the atmosphere will play an important part in how much activity can be seen. Hazy and humid atmospheric conditions will spread the lunar glare and further reduce the meteor activity to be seen. Dry air is ideal so if you have the choice to view from mountain locations compared to lowlands, travel to the mountains!

An even more important factor in the number of meteors to be seen will be the time of night to attempt to observe. Most potential observers will attempt to view Perseid activity as soon as it becomes dark. At this time the moon will be low in the southeastern sky and the glare will not be as bad as it will be during the middle of the night. At this time of night though, the Perseid radiant, the area of the sky where the Perseid meteors seem to shoot from, will be located low in the northern sky and only a small fraction of the possible activity can be seen. The situation improves with each passing hour as the radiant rises higher into the northeastern sky. The best rates will be seen during the last dark hour before dawn when the radiant lies highest in the sky and the moon lies low in the southwestern sky.

The best strategy to use would be to view as late as possible on Friday night/Saturday morning August 12/13, no matter your location. Face a direction with the moon at your back or at least out of your field of view toward the darkest portion of the sky. This would be anywhere in the northern half of the sky. Use a chair or lounge chair so that you are comfortable. Standing will strain your neck and you will not be comfortable for long. Do not look straight up, rather aim you view approximately half way up in the sky making certain that no trees, hills, or buildings are blocking your view. Watch for at least 30 minutes as meteor activity appears in random groups. There will be periods when nothing at all is seen and then several meteors may appear within seconds of each other.

[ashstralia]

i saw one out the window last night. pretty bright, magnitude -3 or so which is about jupiter brightness. i love the celestial fireworks.

[Hardrock69]

The Architect Of The Universe puts on the best light shows, lol.

Saw one tonight. Did not see one since....90 minutes ago. Was setting my camera up, and it flashed in a part of the sky where the camera is not pointed.......

Will see though. Am going back out there in a moment....

[Nitro Express]

Architect of the Universe? Are you a mason Hardrock69?

[Hardrock69]

Technically you might be able to say yes, as when I was 14 I was inducted into the local DeMolay chapter. Was active about a year, then never went back.

Then in the mid-80s, read some books dealing with alternative religious history, and the role of the Knights Templar, etc., so I know as much history of the Masonic Tradition as many hardcore Masons.

Perry included. :D

I am not going to called God "Allah" or "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "HEY YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!".

I always dug the title of Architect Of The Universe. Always seemed more fitting. But then, I am in the architectural field in a minor way. so what the fuck.

Hiram Abif....man, he knew some shit. Got him killed. Oh....about 3,000 years back....

[Seshmeister]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2011/08/rongaran_perseid.jpg

Picture of one from the International Space Centre.





Astronaut Ron Garan, currently on board the International Space Station, was taking pictures of our home world out the window — and how cool is it to be able to say that? — when he took this amazing picture of a meteor burning up in our atmosphere:

Wow! How cool would it be to look down to see a falling star?
He took this shot (according to the header info in the picture) on August 13 at 7:17 p.m. UT, when the ISS was above the Mongolia/China border. This was during the annual Perseid meteor shower, but that doesn’t guarantee this meteor Ron saw was a Perseid. It probably was, though. For an observer on Earth, the Perseids rain down at a rate of about 60 per hour or so. You can usually see about 5 meteors per hour that are just random bits of cosmic detritus. So only 1 meteor in 12 is not a real Perseid, making it likely this one was.

[ashstralia]

that photo is mindblowing!!

[PETE'S BROTHER]

was really hopin' to see more of these in montana big sky, but only caught one or two. :( i think the full moon was impedin' them. that and somewhat shoddy vision at 1 am :gulp:

[Blaze]

The Architect Of The Universe puts on the best light shows, lol.

Saw one tonight. Did not see one since....90 minutes ago. Was setting my camera up, and it flashed in a part of the sky where the camera is not pointed.......

Will see though. Am going back out there in a moment....

Looking forward to seeing some of those pics, if you don't mind! :baaa:

Btw, I think I asked this last year, but I do not recall the answer. Can a picture be taken of the moon with a regular camera. If so how? When I take a picture f the moon, it never looks like what I am seeing. :???:
A regular camera being 10.0 mega pix 200M zoom 12x optical f5.9 -70 8mm 1:2.8-5.0

[ashstralia]

you really need some kind of telephoto lens to scale the image size up, blaze. if you look in the photo section, i took a couple earlier in the year through my telescope. it's kind of equivalent to a 900mm f11 lens.

[Blaze]

Here are 2 highly compressed photos I took this month with no water marks!
Nothing to do with the heavens, but just if I ask for some I suppose I should show some. :biggrin:
Does anyone one know the difference between adding a file as an attachment or an inline here on the great Roth Army?

[Blaze]

you really need some kind of telephoto lens to scale the image size up, blaze. if you look in the photo section, i took a couple earlier in the year through my telescope. it's kind of equivalent to a 900mm f11 lens.
That is one of them long gangly doohickies isn't it. I gave away my telescope when I was passing. Oh well. This camera is OK. It is me. I stock a lot more than I process.
Did I tell the story of last year when I went to take photos of the Meteor Shower.... OMG. I have never to my memory been so scared. :biggrin:

[ashstralia]

http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff418/davej253/lunar/coolmoon.jpg

[Hardrock69]

Well, depends on how close you want your moon photo to be. If you want it to be really close, you can go to your local science supply store (known as the internet) and buy a telescope. How powerful you want is up to you. Then you can buy an adapter for your camera so it can take pics through the telescope. Just Google astrophotography and you can find out a lot.

I will grab the two best photos I took over the weekend and post them here. Thanks to the moon, I feel it was a washout. The photo I took Friday night that caught a meteor, the meteor is so fucking faint that if I look at the image on my monitor at work, I cannot see it at all.

So my pics are not going to be too spectacular.

Sesh, that is one of the most kickass meteor photos I have ever seen!

[fifth element]

great pic, sesh!

[Hardrock69]

I will post an image that is a bit unusual. Went outside about 5:30 or so. Starting to get light out. Got my camera and stuff and brought it inside. Looked through the images.

Apparently I caught an image of a small meteor at 5:17 AM. As I was doing 20-second exposures, the sky seems brighter than it actually was, due to the accumulation of light over 20 seconds.

Anyway, I cropped it at about 1/4 the size of the entire image:

[PETE'S BROTHER]

thought hr might like this

http://video.yahoo.com/editorspicks-12135647/featured-24306389/the-tempest-milky-way-26434946.html#crsl=%252Feditorspicks-12135647%252Ffeatured-24306389%252Fthe-tempest-milky-way-26434946.html

[Hardrock69]

Saw that! Really cool!

If you wanna see more time-lapse video of the Milky Way (which are sort of scary as they truly give you a feeling of the fact we are just a speck of dirt hanging out in an eternity of nothingness), go to www.timescapes.org and check out their user forums.

Ugh...I just now went to check it out and got this error message, so you will have to try back later most likely:


Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

But there is a sub-forum there that is for users to show their work, and there are many videos similar to that one.

Check this vimeo page out:

http://vimeo.com/16369165

[VAiN]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2011/08/rongaran_perseid.jpg

Picture of one from the International Space Centre.

So this got me thinking - what's stopping the space station from getting pelted?

[Hardrock69]

Good question.

Found this:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wstf/laboratories/hypervelocity/mmod.html


Radar.

Large objects can be detected from the ground or from the space station, and the station is moved out of the way.

The space station and the shuttle are designed to take hits from objects too small to detect from radar and still survive.

......................................…
...Larger particles (objects greater than 10-cm in diameter) are being tracked and catalogued by USSPACECOM radar. Spacecraft and satellites can avoid collisions by maneuvering around the larger debris. For example, when a space shuttle is in orbit, the USSPACECOM regularly examines the trajectories of orbital debris to identify possible close encounters. If a catalogued object is projected to come within a few kilometers of the space shuttle, it will normally maneuver away from the object.

Particles less than 1 mm in diameter are not tracked by radar. Fortunately, small particles pose less of a catastrophic threat but they do cause surface abrasions and microscopic holes to spacecraft and satellites.

The greatest challenge is medium size particles (objects with a diameter between 1 mm to 10 cm) because they are not easily tracked and are large enough to cause catastrophic damage to spacecraft and satellites.

Why simulate particle impacts on spacecraft?
Spacecraft must be designed to withstand hypervelocity impacts by untrackable particles. Conducting hypervelocity impacts on spacecraft and satellite components assesses the risk of orbital debris impacting operating spacecraft and satellites. Developing new materials and designs from HVI impact data provides a better understanding to protect spacecraft and satellites from the debris in the space environment.

One concept of spacecraft shielding recently developed, termed multishock, uses several layers of lightweight ceramic fabric to act as "bumpers," which repeatedly shock a projectile to such high energy levels that it melts or vaporizes before it can penetrate a spacecraft's walls. Lightweight shields based on this concept are used on the International Space Station (ISS)....

[VAiN]

Good question.

Found this:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wstf/laboratories/hypervelocity/mmod.html

Cool! Thanks... now i feel slightly smarter...

[ashstralia]

a few thousand kph. that's almost impossible to predict.

[Hardrock69]

Not almost. It IS impossible to predict.

With that Space Station in orbit, it is like a Cosmic Crapshoot.

[Little Texan]

Not to mention all of the space junk floating around up there.

[Seshmeister]

Riding on the ISS looks cool...

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[SunisinuS]

Not almost. It IS impossible to predict.

With that Space Station in orbit, it is like a Cosmic Crapshoot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBmgZv6YAxE

[fifth element]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBmgZv6YAxE

lol...:cool:

[Seshmeister]

Not to mention all of the space junk floating around up there.

http://www.ecopolis.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/space-junk.jpg



The ESA Space Debris Accumulation represents the junk putted in the space from 1957 through 2000. According to ESA’s resident space debris expert, Walter Flury, the 10,000 pieces of space litter catalogued at the end of 2003 break into the following categories:

* 41% — miscellaneous fragments

* 22% — old spacecraft

* 13% — mission related objects

* 7% — operational spacecraft

* 7% — rocket bodies

It means that there’s 93% pure junk and only 7% useful satellites circling the earth…